Employees were told that the dismissals were meant to free room to hire external candidates, leaving headcount almost unchanged, two people said in February.

The news organisation says that, according to its sources, the bank has dismissed Steven Milunovich and two other energy analysts, as the firm seeks to trim expenses in its investment bank.

Richard Lipstein, a Boyden Global Executive Search MD, told Bloomberg: 'The fact that a senior analyst of Steven’s stature was let go confirms to me that Bank of America views cost reduction as a long-term process that won’t end anytime soon, and is indicative of what’s happening on Wall Street. This is also part of a trend to have fewer analysts cover more stocks'.

An RBS spokeswoman said 70 employees would be impacted by the closure of the units and that it would work closely with Asian universal bank CIMB to conclude the deal for the firm's other Asian units.

'For commercial reasons, we have agreed with CIMB that the cash equities, ECM and corporate finance businesses in Korea and cash equities in Indonesia and Singapore will not ultimately transfer as part of the sale', RBS said. 'We have therefore made the decision to initiate steps to wind down these businesses commencing today'.

Finally, Deutsche Bank's outgoing CEO, Josef Ackerman, is one man who isn't in need of another job. He will soon take up a new role as Chairman of Zurich Financial Services, and plans to remain on the boards of Shell, Siemens and Sweden's Wallenberg family's Investor.